Hackers are increasingly targeting law firms and public relations companies with a sophisticated e-mail scheme that breaks into their computer networks to steal sensitive data, often linked to large corporate clients doing business overseas.

The FBI has issued an advisory that warns companies of "noticeable increases" in efforts to hack into the law firms' computer systems — a trend that cyber experts say began as far back as two years ago but has grown dramatically.

In many cases, the intrusions are what cyber security experts describe as "spear phishing," attacks that come through personalized spam e-mails that can slip through common defenses and appear harmless because they have subject lines appropriate to a person's business and appear to come from a trusted source.

"Law firms have a tremendous concentration of really critical, private information," said Bradford Bleier, unit chief with the FBI's cyber division. Infiltrating those computer systems, he said, "is a really optimal way to obtain economic, personal and personal security related information."

Alan Paller, director of research at SANS Institute, a computer-security organization, said Monday that a major law firm in New York was hacked into in early 2008 in an attack that originated in China.

FBI officials did not immediately return messages for comment on the China connection. The FBI advisory was dated Nov. 1, 2009.

U.S. officials have been cautious about publicly linking cyber attacks to China. But recent government reports have described computer attacks believed to have originated in China, although it is unclear if the intrusions were conducted by, or with the endorsement of, any element of the Chinese government.

A Scottish man who was branded unruly and disruptive by the flight crew on a Philadelphia-to-London jet that was diverted to Boston has been ordered held on $300 bail.

Prosecutors say Glasgow resident John Alexander Murray's arm was in a splint and he refused the crew's requests to keep it out of the aisle. They say he then became belligerent and demanded to be taken back to Philadelphia.

A spokesman for Boston's Logan International Airport says Murray was arrested after US Airways Flight 728 landed at around 11 p.m. Monday. The plane departed for London two hours later without him.

Murray pleaded not guilty to a charge of interfering with a flight crew at his arraignment Tuesday at East Boston District Court. The 50-year-old was ordered to return to court Dec. 1.

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A Scottish man is facing charges after the Philadelphia-to-London flight he was on made an unscheduled stop in Boston because he was allegedly being belligerent and disruptive.

A spokesman for Logan International Airport says John Alexander Murray of Glasgow was arrested shortly after US Airways Flight 728 landed at around 11 p.m. Monday. The plane departed for London two hours later.

Prosecutors say the 50-year-old Murray was blocking the aisle with his arm, which was in a splint. They say he would not move his arm, despite several requests from the crew, and demanded to be taken back to Philadelphia.

He is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in East Boston District Court on a charge of interfering with a flight crew.

A federal appeals court is about to consider a lawsuit challenging Michigan's ban against racial preferences in public university admissions and government hiring.

Civil rights groups and University of Michigan students, faculty and applicants say the 2006 ballot measure approved by voters is unconstitutional.

Critics say the constitutional amendment has created an unfair process where universities give weight to geographical diversity and legacy status but not racial identity.

Supporters say the law reflects the will of the people.

Arguments will be held Tuesday morning at the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. A district judge dismissed a challenge to the law last year.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered a disbarred civil rights lawyer convicted in a terrorism case to go to prison and said a judge must consider whether her sentence of a little more than two years behind bars was too lenient.

Lynne Stewart, 70, has been free on appeal since she was sentenced in 2006. The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its nearly 200-page ruling almost two years after hearing arguments in the case.

Stewart was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after she was found guilty of passing messages between her client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and senior members of an Egyptian-based terrorist organization.

The appeals court suggested that the sentence was too lenient, especially when compared with the 20-month prison term given to her co-defendant, Mohammed Yousry, a translator who was working for her. The appeals court said the sentencing judge can also reconsider the sentences of Yousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a former postal worker, depending on what the judge decides with Stewart.

The court also ordered Yousry to begin serving his sentence. Sattar is already serving his 24-year sentence.

In its ruling, the appeals court said Stewart must be resentenced because Judge John G. Koeltl declined to determine at sentencing whether Stewart committed perjury when she testified at her trial.

A federal appeals court says a former HealthSouth executive should go to prison for his role in a huge accounting fraud at the Birmingham-based rehabilitation chain.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that probation isn't enough punishment for Ken Livesay, who pleaded guilty to inflating earnings at HealthSouth.

Federal judges have sentenced Livesay to probation three times for his role in the HealthSouth fraud. Prosecutors appealed each time, claiming the sentences were too lenient.

The 11th Circuit agreed with the government's arguments a third time and went a step further, saying no amount of probation is enough for Livesay. The case now goes back to a district court judge.